While I was studying abroad in Paris, my roommate inspired me to try my hand at embroidering on knitwear. I had to do a bit of research but it was totally worth it!
For this craft you will need:
- A tapestry needle.
- A plain knitted sweater (mine was from Forever21) it’s best to pick one that is mainly knit stitch
- Colors of yarn you will need for your pattern - try to get yarn that is the same size or a little bit bigger than the yarn that was used to make you sweater
First I went online to figure out how to embroider knitwear. These sites were the most helpful.
The nice part about embroidery is it’s pretty easy to fix
any mistakes you make. I’d recommend practicing a little bit so you can get the
feel for how loosely or tightly you need to pull your stitches. After I felt
confident in my new ability, I went on the hunt for a picture of the thing I
wanted to embroider; in this case it was a fox. I googled “fox embroidery” and
that gave the best results.
Originally I tried mapping out my stitches on the computer
before putting them on the sweater but I’m a bit impatient and tend to like to
just jump into things. I printed out my fox head picture and cut out every
colored part. This meant I had a big white piece, a big orange piece, smaller
pink pieces and little holes for the eyes and nose. I held up these pieces of
paper to the sweater and used them as guidelines so I knew where to make my
stitches. Once I did one half, I just mirrored the other and it got easier from
there.
You can see in this picture where I started marking the
cream part of his face. This method might not be the most efficient way of
embroidering but it worked out for me. (I have no drawing abilities so I have
to rely on references.)
Unfortunately this craft isn’t necessarily the cheapest. I
gave this sweater to my roommate as a gift so I bought a brand new sweater but
under other circumstances, I would have gone to Goodwill; they usually have a
pretty strong sweater section. Another downside is that you have to buy full
balls of yarn and will most likely not end up using all of it. C’est la vie.
Hopefully you’ll be able to find other uses for your balls of yarn - I’m going
to make another sweater for myself!
Bisous mes cheris and happy embroidering. If you're interested in reading more about my crafts, music and book recommendations, and day to day adventures, check out my blog Subtle Witchcraft.
Bisous mes cheris and happy embroidering.
Love it...I use to design and knit sweaters (just for my kids) and I always used graph paper to block out the design....What a brilliant idea to purchase a sweater and then add the design!! I'm your latest follower...Can't wait to see what else you have to offer!! :)
ReplyDeleteDenise
I'm so happy you stopped by and decided to join!! I will let Paige know how much you enjoyed her post - I'm sure she'll be just as excited as I am. :)
DeleteI'm glad you liked it so much! I'm also happy to know I'm not the only one who blocks out the designs this way! Brittany has awesome ideas to share so I'm sure you'll enjoy this blog just as much as I do.
DeleteYou did a great job. I haven't gotten into this very much..but it sure looks like fun. Thank you for sharing with us on Twirl and Take a Bow. ~Tammy
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I'm glad you liked it :]
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